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ExtremeTech has an article suggesting the International Space Station may add a Laser "CAN-non" in coming years.
The business end of the proposed laser system would be a Coherent Amplification Network (CAN) laser that can focus a single powerful beam on a piece of debris. The laser would vaporize the surface of the target, causing a plume of plasma to push the object away from the station and toward the atmosphere.
This is still just a proposal, but a test version of the laser might be deployed to the station in a few years.
The Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) is scheduled to be installed on Japan's ISS module in 2017. This is not by design a space-junk-killing piece of equipment. It's intended to monitor the atmosphere for ultraviolet emissions caused by cosmic rays.
However it might serve as an experimental platform for testing (at much lower power) the capability of slight deflections of orbiting space junk.
We discussed the general problem of space junk here on Soylent News at the beginning of the month.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @10:04AM
What would be the range of such a system? Could it in principle also be used as anti-satellite weapon (either pushing the satellite out of their correct orbit, or vaporizing important parts of their instrumentation; possibly both)?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Balderdash on Tuesday May 19 2015, @02:46PM
Ahm firin' mah lazorz!
I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:21PM
If this gets into KSP it would have to be a mod; I doubt it would become cannon any time soon.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:57PM
i'm pretty sure anything in space could function as an anti-satellite weapon. no sense worrying about that. what you should be worrying about is your dependence on satellites and how easily they can be taken down...and how money/time hard they are to get back up.
a nations infrastructure should rely on dirigibles instead of satellites. satellites should be for spying and deep space comms.